Others have voiced concern that Tether, the corporate that points the cryptocurrency, would not truly maintain sufficient U.S. to again all of the digital cash in circulation.

In December, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission despatched a subpoena to each Bitfinex, a cryptocurrency alternate, and Tether, an organization that points a digital foreign money. In 2016, the CFTC fined Bitfinex $75,000 for failing to register with the company and providing “illegal” cryptocurrency transactions. Just a few months later, hackers stole 119,756 bitcoins from the Caribbean-based alternate.

Bitfinex is one of the most important cryptocurrency platforms on the earth by buying and selling quantity, and whereas it’s registered within the Caribbean and owned by a British Virgin Islands firm, it additionally has workplaces in Asia and Europe.

Bitfinex CEO J.L. van der Velde instructed CNBC in an e-mail that “Bitfinex nor Tether is, or has ever, engaged in any sort of market or price manipulation.”

“Tether issuances cannot be used to prop up the price of Bitcoin or any other coin/token on Bitfinex,” van der Velde mentioned.

Griffin has spent the previous decade publishing research on fraud by credit score companies, mortgage fraud by banks, to most not too long ago manipulation of a volatility index referred to as the VIX.

For the time-being, he is turning his consideration to the cryptocurrency market which Griffin mentioned has “not a lot of monitoring going on.”

“In general I research things that are potentially illegal, and there’s a lot of rumors surrounding potential questionable activity in cryptocurrencies,” he mentioned. “That’s why it’s useful to see what the data says — data speaks.”